1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a system for receiving television advertisement associated textual data and for a viewer to obtain, on demand, the textual data in-hand using a television remote control device.
2. Description of Related Art
Whenever an advertisement (ad′) appears on the television (TV) and the viewer is interested in following up on the displayed product, today he must either remember the product contact information, or scribble down the information on a piece of paper. Another option is to have a telephone within reach and to dial the phone number displayed in the advertisement.
The current invention uses a readily available feature of TV signals, namely the teletext standard to transmit advertisement data to a television viewer. The viewer then uses his remote control to selectively acquire the displayed ad's data and thereby to have the advertisement related data at hand for use.
Generally, in the USA, teletext is not greatly used, as it is in Europe and other global regions. In the USA, closed captioning (CC) is commonly available on most TV sets and TV set-top boxes. Closed captioning is a specific use of teletext in the USA, i.e. as an aid to deaf TV viewers.
Goreta teaches in U.S. Pat. No. 5,973,747 a TV program management system to display and control TV programs. Goreta also teaches the display of program information on the TV screen as well as on a remote control device. Goreta does not teach the retrieval, display and interaction of a viewer with TV advertisements as the present invention teaches, but is focused on television viewing program management.
Darbee et al. teaches in U.S. Pat. No. 6,002,450 a remote control unit that displays television advertisements. Darbee et al. teaches that the remote control is in effect an extension of the television viewing space to capture a viewer's attention with advertisements. This is taught by the use of the remote control whilst it is not being used by the viewer, i.e. ad's are broadcast to the remote without a viewer's request or interaction. It is also taught that time based display of advertisements is offered on the remote control's display, i.e. similar as to how advertisement space is sold on televisions.